1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to playback control of multimedia files, and more particularly, to a method for enhancing fast backward performance, and to an associated electronic device.
2. Description of the Prior Art
As technologies of Flash memories progress in recent years, many kinds of portable memory devices (e.g. memory cards respectively complying with SD/MMC, CF, MS, and XD standards) or portable multimedia players equipped with Flash memories (e.g. MP3 players or portable audio/video players) are widely implemented in various applications. Therefore, the control of access to Flash memories in these portable devices has become an important issue.
Taking NAND Flash memories as an example, they can mainly be divided into two types, i.e. Single Level Cell (SLC) Flash memories and Multiple Level Cell (MLC) Flash memories. Each transistor that is considered a memory cell in SLC Flash memories only has two charge levels that respectively represent a logical value 0 and a logical value 1. In addition, the storage capability of each transistor that is considered a memory cell in MLC Flash memories can be fully utilized. More specifically, the voltage for driving memory cells in the MLC Flash memories is typically higher than that in the SLC Flash memories, and different voltage levels can be applied to the memory cells in the MLC Flash memories in order to record information of two bits (e.g. binary values 00, 01, 11, or 10) in a transistor that is considered a memory cell. Theoretically, the storage density of the MLC Flash memories may reach twice the storage density of the SLC Flash memories, which is considered good news for NAND Flash memory manufacturers who encountered a bottleneck of NAND Flash technologies.
As MLC Flash memories are cheaper than SLC Flash memories, and are capable of providing higher capacity than SLC Flash memories while the space is limited, MLC Flash memories have been a main stream for implementation of most portable memory devices on the market. However, various problems of the MLC Flash memories have arisen due to their unstable characteristics. Although there are some solutions proposed by the related art in response to these problems, it seems unlikely that the related art gives consideration to both operation performance and system resource management. As a result, no matter which solution is chosen, a corresponding side effect typically exists.
In addition, as hardware resources are limited within these portable devices such as the portable multimedia players mentioned above, slow response problems of fast backward operations for huge multimedia files may occur. More particularly, when performing fast backward operations according to the related art, it is typically required to search starting from the beginning of a multimedia file through to a target location thereof, causing the need of a long time wait and a large storage space for buffering, and further causing additional power consumption due to many additional read operations. Thus, a novel method is required for enhancing the control of data access of a Flash memory, in order to give consideration to both operation performance and system resource management.